All things SSD - Help!

[Cthaine]

Hello every one!

I am some what new to the realm of PC building and hardware, and am totally confused about SSD's. No matter how hard i try, i cant seem to find any form of video/forum/review that just explains SSD's. With all of the different controllers, flashes, and brands, my head is simply spinning. Where/how can i learn about them, because i plan on doing a system build in a few months and have no clue which one to go for. It seems like there are about 15 brands and they all have about 5 different types.

Chris

 

[Alexander Lee]

Well all SSDs are massively faster than mechanical hard drives. I think that the reliability is therefore very important even if it means you lose some speed. You want an SSD that is fast and reliable, especially if you have two of them in raid 0. Some drives that people on here seem to prefer for reliability are the mushkin drives/corsair/intel and crucial drives.

Firstly you need to decide on is the size of the drive that you require. I think that 120gb and 240gb drives are the best £/gb at the moment but that might change in the next few months as prices appear to be falling a fair bit at the moment.

If you are looking at benchmarks try not to focus specifically on the sequential read/write speeds and also try and look at the 4k speeds as this is more like real life applications. Although the crucial m4 appears to be slower at sequential read/writes it is one of the fastest drives out there in real world applications and loading windows.

If I were going to pick out a drive now for me personally I would be picking up a single corsair 120gb force GT or a crucial m4 128gb but others here will probably disagree with my choice there. Try not to decide now though and think about it when you come to build your PC and you can see how they compare in terms of prices then.

Hope I was some help

Edit: I have heard Kingston SSDs are also quite good

 

[jamesriley94]

To add to Alex Lee's post;

The part in the SSD that defines the speed is the controller.

There are only a few companies that make the controllers - Marvell, Indllix, Sandforce and kind of Intel/Sandforce.

Marvel tend to be the most reliable, but speeds are considered slower than Sandforce and Indilix. Hence when you see pricing, you'll see an OCZ agility 3 bragging over 500mbps read and write speeds. Yes this is fast, but in real life performance you really dont need that in my opinion. Indilix is newer, making the controllers for the new OCZ Vertex 4s - I have no idea how good the controllers are, but since they're only found on OCZ SSDs anyway, I wouldnt touch them with a barge pole.

Sandforce is the most common. However, reliability is questionable, as I'm sure the very frequent firmware updates show. However, it is fast. I personally would not buy a Sandforce controlled SSD because I believe reliability is more key than a few mb/s extra in write speeds.

However, in making the new line of Intel 520 SSDs, Sandforce teamed up with Intel to make the controller and so the Intel 520 SSDs are very reliable, and you get the speed of Sandforce. However, IMO they are not worth the extra £50 over a Crucial M4 (128gb versions).

There are also Samsung SSDs, which are also reliable and fast, but they are in the same boat as Intel for the reliability and speed, but for the same kind of pricing as Intel, and tbh, given the choice between Intel and Samsung, I'd go for Intel any day.

Hope this clears things up for you.

Bottom line is, stay away from OCZ at all costs. Crucial M4s are the best option unless Intels and Samsungs come down in price, which is unlikely.

 

[Cthaine]

Your bottom line is basically what i already knew, and your post clarified why i heard that. Thanks a ton man!

What about Mushkin? Pretty cheap and i hear fairly reliable?

 

[jamesriley94]

They do tend to be reliable yeh. But then again, everyone at OC3D seem to love mushkin and think they're amazing, and on other forums they're barely mentioned.

For a hard drive for me, due to hundreds of failings in the past, nowadays I just buy the most reliable drives out there, so I'd always recommend the Crucial M4s, but you wont go far wrong with the Mushkins either

 

[silent_spaces]

To add to Alex Lee's post;

The part in the SSD that defines the speed is the controller.

There are only a few companies that make the controllers - Marvell, Indllix, Sandforce and kind of Intel/Sandforce.

Marvel tend to be the most reliable, but speeds are considered slower than Sandforce and Indilix. Hence when you see pricing, you'll see an OCZ agility 3 bragging over 500mbps read and write speeds. Yes this is fast, but in real life performance you really dont need that in my opinion. Indilix is newer, making the controllers for the new OCZ Vertex 4s - I have no idea how good the controllers are, but since they're only found on OCZ SSDs anyway, I wouldnt touch them with a barge pole.

Sandforce is the most common. However, reliability is questionable, as I'm sure the very frequent firmware updates show. However, it is fast. I personally would not buy a Sandforce controlled SSD because I believe reliability is more key than a few mb/s extra in write speeds.

However, in making the new line of Intel 520 SSDs, Sandforce teamed up with Intel to make the controller and so the Intel 520 SSDs are very reliable, and you get the speed of Sandforce. However, IMO they are not worth the extra £50 over a Crucial M4 (128gb versions).

There are also Samsung SSDs, which are also reliable and fast, but they are in the same boat as Intel for the reliability and speed, but for the same kind of pricing as Intel, and tbh, given the choice between Intel and Samsung, I'd go for Intel any day.

Hope this clears things up for you.

Bottom line is, stay away from OCZ at all costs. Crucial M4s are the best option unless Intels and Samsungs come down in price, which is unlikely.

why not choosing ocz vertex 4 ssd? read here after the new update these drivers are the fatest out there..

 

[jamesriley94]

The Vertex 4s may be alright yeh, and they are the fastest on paper...

But in the past OCZ have been really unreliable so I'd rather not take any chances and I'd just want to buy something first time that I knew was going to work. I know things may be a lot better not than they used to be but only time will tell...

And if they end up not being reliable, I dont want to be one of the initial people who bought one thinking it was going to be amazing then being stuck with it, so i'd rather just play it safe and get the M4. Tbh, SSDs are all fast enough for what you need, and in windows tasks, there will be no difference between the M4 and the V4 - and infact in some 4K writes, the M4 will actually come out on top.

 

[Cthaine]

in all reality SSD's are going to continue to drop in price rapidly and gain in performance, so i really don't plan to buy anything too high-end at this point. Remember, about 3 years ago a 120gb was like what $500?